Mullis: What do I have in common with a rock legend? Nothing, but a piano.

Nature’s call had me getting up before my alarm. My plan was to hit the bathroom, feed the animals – who believe any human movement after 4 a.m. means breakfast – and get back to bed.

My plan backfired, as I was awake just long enough to start thinking about the day’s to-dos. I made coffee, scrolling through NPR while I waited. A photo of Elton John sporting a pink mohawk wig stopped my scroll. The headline: Tear-Jerker British Ad Re-Creates Elton John's Christmas Past.

Click.

The story was about viewer reactions to a British department store’s Christmas ad featuring Elton John. Embedded in the article was the ad itself.

Click.

It started with Elton John playing “Your Song” at an upright piano. He was alone, dressed in a robe and pajamas. The song continued but the visual cut to him performing before an adoring stadium crowd, then another. As the clips changed, he grew younger and the crowds became smaller until he was recording the song in a studio. Next, he was a teenager playing with wild abandon on the piano while his family danced around him, then a kid performing in a piano recital while his mother watched with anxious pride. Finally, he was a young boy running down the steps on Christmas morning to find his present – that same upright piano.

“Some gifts are more than a gift.”

This viewer’s reaction? Sobbing mess.

During those two minutes, I relived hundreds of hours of my kids’ piano lessons, piano practices, and piano recitals. As I did, my baby adults became younger, their faces rounder, their smiles toothier, their playing less exact.

I stopped at a memory of being pregnant with my third child, watching my husband muscle his family’s upright piano into our teeny Detroit home. It was the gift we didn’t ask for, the one my mother-in-law insisted we take. It seemed silly at the time. Neither my husband nor I played, and our kids were four, two and in utero.

That night I remember my oldest banging on the keys and singing nonsense. I remember my son laying one finger on one key, pressing it carefully and then throwing his head back in open-mouthed awe at the sound it made.

Piano lessons started, continuing for the next 17 years and counting. During that time, the piano has traveled with us through five moves, including an international relocation. It has accompanied every birthday, every Christmas, and every new instrument my musical children learned.

Bach and the Beatles, movie scores and original creations, Schubert’s sonatas and rock’n’roll.

Once my son placed pennies on the keys to watch them dance while he practiced until two slipped under the keys. They are still there, making a soft click whenever those keys are pressed, which annoys my oldest to no end.

My youngest and my son stopped formal lessons but still play for fun when the mood strikes. My oldest, who will graduate with her piano performance degree in 2020, plays every day. Whenever she’s home, she practices for hours, no longer the little girl who pounded the keys all those years ago. Recently, she asked us to tune the family piano for her Christmas present.

Only a musician would ask for such a gift.

I left the computer and sat at our piano. I placed my fingers on the keys, not to play, but to touch my children's fingerprints.